Halfway To Paradise: The Quietus Albums Of The Year So Far
John Doran
, July 12th, 2013 09:16

It's become something of a Quietus tradition to announce that music is so good this year that we've had to extend the length of our twice yearly charts, to contain its bounteous nature gracefully. And, yes, this July we've bumped our halfway mark album chart to a top 75 as to include all of our staff's choices. There's always a bit of discussion at Quietus towers, powered by many mugs of mahogany hued Yorkshire Gold Tea, as to whether this is really because there is more good music being released now than ever before, or whether we're just looking harder to source it or attracting more interesting people to send us their CDs, vinyl, streams and downloads. I'm not sure that it's really that important, as long as the music is still there for us to write about and enjoy.

Of course, if it was just down to us alone, god knows how pitiful the pool of music that we cover would be.

So instead of explaining my methodology as per usual, I thought I'd say thank you to some folk for helping us make the site what it is. Certainly this year I owe thanks to a whole bunch of people for opening doors for us and introducing us to new local scenes and music cultures. Primarily I want to say cheers to Joe Bangina, Joost Heijthuijsen, Hicham Chadly, Noov Senary, Salma el Tarzi, Mahmoud Refat, Ayman Ramadan, Sadat and Samer and everyone else who hooked me up for my trip to Cairo earlier this year - and those of you still in Cairo, please stay safe! Given that Egypt is still a dictatorship and subject to censorship of all officially available media, there aren't any albums as such to include in this chart, but we're still hoping to see the first international release by Islam Chipsy later this year and hopefully there will be some exciting news about Sadat and 7a7a to pass on soon. No doubt some Electro Chaabi will feature in next Monday's chart of compilations, reissues and mixes.

Elsewhere we owe a shout out to the true heads in Poland and Western Ireland for opening our eyes to incredible, genre-ignoring underground scenes. In Eastern Europe thanks go to our writer friend and member of kIRk, Filip Kalinowski, label guy Maciek Stankiewicz and Unsound curator Mat Schulz. Likewise thanks go to Stephen Graham, Darren Toms and Daniel Harrison, for bringing the West Coast of the Emerald Isle to vivid and terrifying sonic life for us.

Thanks to each and every one of our contributors who do a fabulous job despite utterly appalling terms and conditions - THANK YOU, YOU SEXY BASTARDS - without you the site would be nothing. In the terms of this article however, I'd like to single out Kiran Sande, Sean Kitching, Simon Jay Catling, John Freeman, Julian Marszalek, Joseph Burnett, Alex Macpherson, Noel Gardner, Gary Suarez, Sophie Colletta, Toby Cook, Glen McLeod and everyone else who has brought me music that I was previously unaware of. I've got 99 problems but a pitch ain't one.

Munificent praise should also be heaped on the heads of record label owners and bands who help us to turn around really great features, such as Andy at Riot Season and Bad Guys, who went clay pigeon shooting with Mat Colegate for this excellent feature. To everyone at labels, to everyone in bands, to everyone who works in distro, to the promoters, printers, designers and everyone else we work with from time to time: we salute you.

There are too many PR people who've brought us great music this year to single out, so to all of you, major label, indie label, independent PR, part of a big team, I say thank you for all your efforts. Please come over to Quietus Towers for breakfast on us at your convenience.

And finally, my never ending thanks to Luke Turner, Rory Gibb and Laurie Tuffrey for unstinting hard work and creativity in working on the site: they are all handsome, generous, fragrant smelling and spiritually resilient to corruption to a fault and hopefully will all (one day) receive giant brass statues constructed in their honour. And maybe someone will buy Luke a tank or a steam train.

This top 75 was chosen between the four of us equally, based on which new release albums we have listened to the most this year so far. Of course it's up to you to decide what you think your own chart of releases would contain, but we hope that there's enough new music here to give you plenty to explore. Please utilise the comments feature below to tell us what you would have included yourself.

NB: This is a snapshot of what we like right now. Death to good taste! Death to consensus! Death to worrying about what everyone will like in the future! Long live exciting music that kicks against the pricks!

"The positive and soaring fourth album Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO is the sun seeking yang to the darker yin of The Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd-penned apocalyptica on The Terror. The squally drama recalls the psych-fuelled dreamscape of its obvious forebears, from the early 4AD roster, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, even Throwing Muses at times." Nick Hutchings

"Given that this is Wölfbait's first release, they aren't alumni of any well known bands unless you're embedded in the Dublin hardcore scene, and they have struck a massively noise-ridden end-of-days soundtrack they call "Kraut violence" (as in, Krautrock meets powerviolence), the lack of immediate big push is understandable. However, I'd be surprised if Wölfbait doesn't get a vinyl release one day, because it absolutely rips, and no-one who's heard it seems to disagree." Noel Gardner

"I have to confess something: with the double disc prog-gasm that was previous LP The Guessing Game and the globe-trotting and comfortably testudineous winding down of operations – that, as well as cementing their legend and reminding us all why Cathedral were so important in the first place, perhaps added an unrealistic pressure and expectation – I was as sceptical as I'd dare be that The Last Spire would turn out to be any good. And then they went and made a doom album, an out and out, claw clinching, horn raising doom album, and arguably their strongest record in over a decade." Toby Cook

"On this album, released on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings, the Owiny Sigoma Band have dared to make an album that pushes their ever-evolving sound into unexpected directions. The result is no sucker punch, but a knockout blow." Richie Troughton

"You are simply not afraid enough anymore, and yet you really should be. There used to be a time when all the best thrash and crossover served to constantly remind you that the threat of nuclear war was imminent, that faceless multinational corporations and your own government were out to face-fuck you and that the human race was sleepwalking to oblivion. And then, somehow, in the last 10 or so years it all became about skateboards, beer, zombies and 'Turbo Hyper Ultra Mega Power' – it just wasn't dangerous enough anymore. Thank the bullet-belted gods, then, for the emergence of Dallas, Texas based crossover five piece Power Trip. And thank those very same gods for their Southern Lord released debut full-length, Manifest Decimation, of which you should be very afraid, because it sounds like some sort of terrifying Cold War army marching unstoppably onwards to the sound of Exodus covering Nuclear Assault." Toby Cook

"Hey Colossus haven't just been a band for a decade, they've been a consistently good one. But with the release of Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo – their eighth album since their 2003 formation – they've suddenly arrived at a place where they're not just a good, but an excellent band. Something in their sound has clicked, but it's no subtle flicking of a switch; this feels like a dislocated shoulder being forced back in to place." Tom Hannan

"Dinos and his brother Jake curated an edition of All Tomorrow's Parties in 2004. Looking back through that line-up now serves as a pretty comprehensive road map of influences by which to understand where Luftbobler came from: the heavily effected peals of brass on 'He Has No Method' and the splintered voices of 'Pizza Man' are pure Throbbing Gristle, the spiraling beats of 'So It Goes' and 'Sputnik' riff on Tri Repetae-era Autechre, the bouncing-ball piano figures that crop up occasionally are reminiscent of Richard D. James' music." Rory Gibb

"So let's get on with it: Iceage's You're Nothing is one of the most exciting, open-minded pop punk (not THAT sort) albums I've heard in years. North American punk rock is currently in rude health, most obviously evidenced in crossover terms by Iceage's Matador labelmates Fucked Up. To me, though, Danish group Iceage are the superior, largely because of the defiantly European aesthetic that shines through their music. You couldn't really imagine these handsome young Danes in big shorts and tees or baggy jeans." Luke Turner

"The success of Ruled By Passion Destroyed By Lust lies in a number of differing factors that add up to one almighty whole. Weatherall's ability to cherry-pick any number of wildly differing influences without relying on any one in particular is remarkable in itself but the fact that he and Fairplay consistently come up with something that's their own is a talent to lauded. So yes, while the fat, dubby basslines are firmly in place and the Krautrock influences dance across these 10 tracks, The Asphodells manage the unique trick of being both in hock to everyone and no one at the same time." Julian Marszalek

"If you're hoping for subtlety and intricacy, you've come to the wrong place. The only counterpoint to the stream of crashing cymbals and pounded skins is a crude oscillator that Chippendale apparently activates directly from his kit and which serves to mimic Gibson's shuddering bass lines in Lightning Bolt, only with less control over where they fly. This is noise rock at its most animalistic: punkish rhythms allied to untamed sweeps and swoops of brutal electro-racket." Joseph Burnett

"Pale young man, I can read your dreams. Flags of red, black and gold glowing in the light of enormous bonfires, a fraternity of youth doomed to wilt under the frost of age's ever encroaching winter, horns echoing through mountain forests and hawks circling through steel grey skies. You dream of a nation without boundaries, united only through the language of a thousand broken hearts, tears glistening on the cheeks of marble statues, drum rolls and epic poems, the glint of daggers and the swearing of blood oaths. Pale young man, have I got a record for you." Mat Colegate

"It's practically impossible to describe what Melt Yourself Down sound like without coming across like a caricature of Bobby Gillespie. Let's give it a try: punk jazz funk afrobeat blues hip-hop no-wave free-jazz dance psychedelic rock. See what I mean?" Nick Southall

"This is fine American blue collar slackness, a paean to the continuing vibe of real boogie, in thrall to the body moving joy formidable - and no retro exercise either. Rather, it's living musical authenticity that hasn't stopped to look in the mirror too many times and dances like no one gives a shit, the good times rolling on down the years. Why stop?" Harry Sword

"It is 10 years since Touré's solo debut, Fondo, and in that time he has become a star in his homeland. His powerful desert blues is cut from the same cloth as his mentor Ali Farka Touré, whom Samba toured with in the late 90s, having previously cut his teeth with the group Farafina Lolo (African Star). Touré has also performed the late Ali Farka Toure's work with kora player Toumani Diabaté. Alongside the likes of Tinariwen, Tamikrest and Terakaft, he can be seen as one of the leading proponents of the strong wave of Malian blues that has captured the attention of music lovers across the globe, all voicing the challenges facing the north west African country's people during this period of upheaval." Richie Troughton

"With this, their third album, the Florida trio seem to have crystallised their increasingly refined sound: heavily pop-inflected post-punk underlaid by the noisy traces of their hardcore origins. The fact that there are only five songs suggests brevity, but Totale Nite is a masterwork of long-form cuts, nowhere better exemplified than on the title track's shift from insurgent opening wall of sound to expansive 80s guitar-pop, Carson Cox's vocals cast in romantic poise, to freak out coda." Laurie Tuffrey

"Zomby always plays it coy with his audience, one the one hand revealing facets of his personality via his infamously tetchy Twitter feed and a drip feed of sketch-like tunes, while simultaneously denying us entry into the insular, hermetic world of his music. With Love isn't going to win him any new converts but it's the best Zomby album since Where Were U In '92, focusing his loves of UK pirate radio culture, dirty south hip-hop beats and moody synth plug-ins across two discs of spectral, freaked-out club-not-club music. Giving with one hand and taking with the other, its best tracks beckon you to dance before cruelly dropping out without warning, leaving you floundering, confused but intrigued." Rory Gibb

51. The Botanist - IV: Mandragora (Flenser)

Review pending

50. Violetshaped - Violetshaped (Violet Poison)

"Seething froths of noise and heavy thumping club vibes – and the word is applied loosely here, as this music best suits the kind of club that's little more than a basement with a sound system – are the order of the day on Violetshaped. It's split over two records, its two halves quite discrete: the first is more industrial and beat-driven, while the second trades in more obscure, eerie atmospheres. Theatrical shrieks that reveal a fascination with classic horror film tropes pierce the insistent techno thump of 'The Lord Won't Forget', and similar motifs are deployed throughout the record to chilling effect, such as the horror film samples, malevolent rasps and echo chamber scrapes that punctuate 'Down Regulation''s squall of gritty noise. The skeletal kick on 'cX310' is buried deep under layers of scratchy, hoarse noise, while 'Anaesthesia' is a fitting closer, all synth swoops and a greyscale sawing sound that drills deep into the skull." Maya Kalev

"So it is with Fade, an album that makes a bold and convincing claim at being Yo La Tengo's most streamlined to date. The epic explorations of melody, mood and noise that frequently extended beyond the 10-minute mark (and, on occasion, combined to take up over half the running time of previous efforts when stacked up against shorter tracks) have been jettisoned in favour of more concise pieces of music. The result is album swathed in a cotton wool loveliness that plays to the band's strengths." Julian Marszalek

"Prurient's Through The Window, a three-cut techno tour-de-force released this month on the Blackest Ever Black imprint, is at once limiting and liberating. It's a prequel of sorts, written during the same sessions as 2011's Bermuda Drain, a recording that set Prurient's work apart from concurrent fare, and sparked Dominick Fernow's alliance with co-conspirator and BEB label boss Kiran Sande. Through The Window's bookend tracks are substantially lengthy, and profoundly fearsome. Compositionally, they mimic the flows of codified data: these epics stream along for a time, change inconsequentially on the surface; but closer audition reveals how their features repeat and differ in subtle and unfolding ways. Fernow frames cinemascope panoramas that apparently fill the sonic field until, abruptly, another window opens." Ryan Alexander Diduck

"There is a darkness in the west. Hacker Farm's U/H/F is a slouching, rough beast of dank, clanking electronica; the sinister pulse of feral farm machinery, human voices traced in static on the wind over the Severn Estuary, Cold War codes and grinding industrial basslines." Ben Graham

"Lebanon-born, Berlin-based musician Rabih Beaini is more commonly known for his club music aliases Ra.H and Morphosis, under which he whips up storms of improvisational techno inspired by noise, electroacoustic music and free jazz. Albidaya is a reflection on his childhood in Lebanon and the country's traditional folk music forms, so there's plenty of acoustic instrumentation here, including plucked strings, saxophone and drums. There's an audible sense of delight, however, in the way that Beaini hacks and scrapes away at them with static, dust and grit, while the frazzled tones of an Eko Tiger Duo organ (one of Sun Ra's favourites) seep like oil through the music's core. It's an intense, noisy and turbulent listen, and by its end you feel chewed up and spat out, but thoroughly cleansed." Rory Gibb

"The album positively bubbles - adding Latin swing, Afro beats and Oriental shimmer to their hallucinatory jams ... 13 Degrees Of Reality is a triumphant testament to an ongoing desire to absorb a myriad of influences and morph their sound into fascinating back alleys." John Freeman

"Mind Control seems to have been written with ensemble live shows in mind, as opposed to the solitary bedroom-based vision ploughed by just one man. As such it loses some of the trashy anything-goes experimentalism while growing a tougher, harder exterior shell. Criticisms aside, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats remain just as intriguing as ever, wearing their influences on their highly-stylised sleeves with as much campy posturing as it takes without ever falling into the trap of derivative retro-clichés or becoming stoner rock's answers to the Darkness or Yuck, as some may fear. Although Blood Lust remains their crowning achievement to date, Mind Control's highlights shine just as true." Charlie Frame

"Sure to be the most dissected and overanalyzed record of 2013, Yeezus opens with a disruptive robotic skronk and closes with coy snippets of patter, two indicators that maybe dwelling too much might prove maddening. As with West's Jay-Z infused Watch The Throne, this sixth solo outing once again evokes the erratic artist's notorious sexually charged narcissism. But Yeezus sports far too many clues, coincidences, nods, and references to simply file it away with such succinct dismissiveness." Gary Suarez

"Still, though: the prospect of Marr unfettered by any famous foil or hindered by a fellow collaborator's vision is mighty tasty indeed. Ain't even no Healers round these parts – here's Johnny, on his lonesome. And it's this curiosity that forms the crux of The Messenger, too. Anyone awaiting the same ear-pricking, skin-tingling innovation that Marr's renowned for may be disappointed: his guitar is dazzling throughout, no doubt, but there's richer spoils here than his string-manipulation. Instead, the true fascination with his debut solo album is how it's unmistakably shot through with his own personality." Ben Hewitt

"Just as the poignancy of the image of a riderless boat filled with ownerless relics is born from lack and mystery, so these compositions are haunting because Grouper gives them space to breathe, filling that absence left by the unidentified lost man with her own hushed emotional response. If you're still unmoved by the time you reach the final song, well, you're probably as dead as he is." Maya Kalev

"Her first full-length album to document her shift to rhythm-driven dance music, it captures the exuberance and hyperactive intensity of her earlier forays into hi-tech soul, but further pries open the mix and sharpens the music's impact, allowing each drum hit and fizzy firecracker melody to breathe and operate as distinct from others around it." Rory Gibb

"In an age where retro is a dirty word and paint has barely had time to dry before it's old news, we need records like Love & Devotion. A gentle rebuke to our insatiable thirst for novelty, it proves beyond doubt that musical nods to the past need not be automatically synonymous with creative calcification. Instead, Heterotic draw on a rich musical heritage, exploring how the ghosts of the past affect the present. Retro styling contextualises Love & Devotion and, crucially, the album's story is delivered with an emotional heft that many current producers aspiring to hypermodernity would do well to note." Maya Kalev

"Evidence is an assemblage of sorts, a collection of tracks that Foxx and Benge recorded piecemeal over the last couple of years, some previously released, others not. It's to the pair's credit that the album hangs together as well as it does. It also contains some of John Foxx and the Maths' most adventurous work to date, alongside some of their most accessible." Ben Graham

"Thing is, even after eight million Twitter jokes, meme GIFs, Facebook posts and more within the space of a few hours, even when I finally had completed an order and the download was arriving, some part of me still wasn't quite believing it. A couple of people had thought that maybe it was a hack and a joke, and while I'd said "They can't have done that to both the Facebook site and the actual webpage," I half thought. 'Well... maybe they could.'" Ned Raggett

"Whether it comes with age, experience, or both, there's a point at which we can detect our torment shifting to tolerance, our fast-calcifying angst beginning to make room for something approaching understanding. With Holy Fire, Yannis Philippakis and his band – Jack Bevan, Walter Gervers, Edwin Congreave and Jimmy Smith – have gone some way towards capturing the sound of that transition. From the glissandos and vertigo of 'Milk & Black Spiders' to the jounce and yawn of 'Providence', in every note and noteless space you can feel it: the physical unburdening, the personal reckoning, the fatigue and reprieve of letting go." Lauren Strain

“From the opening tapped guitar line of 'Year Of The Glad', Stern's fourth album (which almost deserves inclusion for its title alone) tears through its 32-minute length at breakneck speed. The appearance of Oneida's Kid Millions on drums is a deft stroke, lending the album this frenetic urgency, which, matched to Stern's more song-focussed approach, pivoting on her abilities both as a lyricist and as a fretboard-slayer, forges an album of brilliant rawness, a feeling which translates into repeat-play addictiveness.” Laurie Tuffrey

"Detroit native Robert Hood is generally known for his work as a master of minimal techno, stripping away all extraneous material to leave pure, unfettered machine funk, all that's needed to send the body into a rapture of motion. His side project Floorplan practices the same economy of form but leans closer towards house, setting samples from gospel, soul and disco into lovely, looped motion above eyes-down four-to-the-floor. The results are little short of astonishing, especially on gorgeous, moving highlight 'Never Grow Old', where a disco diva works herself up to ever greater heights of spiritual fervour until the track finally explodes in ecstatic release." Rory Gibb

32. Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood - Black Pudding (Heavenly)

"On Black Pudding, Duke Garwood is to Lanegan what Warren Ellis is to Nick Cave. He adds creepy, sombre atmosphere to tracks like 'Shade of The Sun' and on 'Thank You' wouldn't have felt out of place on this year's sublime Bad Seeds effort Push The Sky Away. To this tangible atmosphere, Lanegan adds gravelly gravitas to recall Waits at his best on 'After Hours'. It's a frustrating, clever number that leaves you wanting more, a trick also poignantly achieved on 'War Memorial', a song that similarly ends in a tantalising semi-colon." Nick Hutchings

"It might just be the best thing [Ruaridh] Law has been involved in to date, with his tracks occupying a sweet spot between the sludgy murk of his original Red Night album, the percussive drive of his club music, and a newfound urgency that touches on the dread bass pressure of Shackleton and Raime, Kassem Mosse's gradually unspooling house grooves and, on highlight 'Super 8 In Glasgow Tenement', the drizzle-soaked moorland electronics of The Haxan Cloak." Rory Gibb

"Trading in the GarageBand strings and brass on these compositions (written while she was the receptionist for the City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) for the real deal, Laura Mvula's debut album arrives garlanded with praise. What's refreshing is that, by its close, not only do you find yourself backing these tips for greatness, but the album - an immaculately drawn piece of jazz-inflected pop - is loaded with such originality that Mvula's carved out a niche of her own in 2013's musical landscape." Laurie Tuffrey

"An absorbing, immersive listening experience, Long.Live.A$AP outshines the recent full-lengths of technically more proficient rappers as well as those of strikingly safer hip-hop hitmakers. Though the absence of former ally Spaceghostpurrp is certainly felt, Rocky has amassed such an impressive collection of beats that the temptation to skip a song never arises. Such ingenuity is befitting an apparent aesthete like Rocky who, like the stylish Kanye before him, fully if perhaps cynically knows that the devil is in the detailing." Gary Suarez

"Function could have put out an hour's worth of solid bangers and the result would still have been better than 90% of the derivative slop out there. Just like his thin but rewarding discography, Incubation speaks volumes of Sumner's commitment to quality and artistic progress. Sandwell District as a label may be over, but with Incubation, Function fulfils its closing statement to perfection. It bears repeating. Stasis is death. See you on the other side." Maya Kalev

"Lescop's eponymous debut is teeming with life, undulating grooves, deft electronic ambience and has hefty hooks aplenty. No fat goon in a Teardrop Explodes t-shirt is going to spoil that by telling me he's heard it all before. It marches with the confidence of a man about town, a noirish beast prowling the Parisian underground scene; it's slick, seductive and stalks from club to club, and from capital city to capital city, while the rest of us sleep or do quotidian chores like working. Lescop paints a picture of himself as some elegantly wasted nightfly, although if that sounds shallow, there's plenty of existential angst and dark emotion to sink your teeth into." Jeremy Allen

"Throwing [references] to see what sticks seems a little at odds with the nourishing aspect at the heart of Wanda Group, a certain verisimilitude that sidesteps overt abstraction towards something more beautiful. Over the two sides of Piss Fell Out Like Sunlight, a delightful network of small forms are laid out in a sequence not dissimilar from that of a mixtape. The softest, most porous of his work to date, it sounds chiseled from rock as crumbled and aerated as that found on the artwork." Matthew Kent

25. Dawn Richard - GoldenHeart (101 Distribution)

"Crucially, the album has the kind of depth that rules out single-track highlights, and a collective grace that improves with every listen, frequently stemming from buried sonic earworms: the handclaps and submerged drum loop at the start of 'Gleaux' give way to an earth-shaking half-time tremor and distant chamber strings, showing off the care and attention given to GoldenHeart's arrangement and composition." Laurie Tuffrey

"Remember a few years back, the mainstream music press was all agog over a London music scene based around herberts having a skaggy gap year acting like extras from a Dickens panto? This am dram behaviour basically was the death of indie, until the rather more appealingly degenerate Fat White Family appeared in our lives earlier this year. They look like the kind of young men whose hands relieve OAPs of wallets to keep band and vices going, yet are one of the tightest, most capable live groups we've seen in a very long time. Their debut album Champagne Holocaust is a ludicrous and louche affair, tying up the blues, lo-fi and indie and giving reddened arses to the lot of 'em, with preposterous, deviant songs about "five sweaty fingers on the dashboard", or wondering who shot Lee Oswald ("was it a secret government within the American government? ... was it Bobby Davro?") If Mark E Smith still had a sex drive he still might not come up with anything as good as 'Cream Of The Young'. That they're currently not on the cover of the NME rather than the laughable Miles Kane is a sad and damning indictment of a pernicious age." Luke Turner

"The Redeemer is a singular achievement. It's as much a mosaic as it is a mixtape, and as much a novel as it is a daytime soap. While the partial abandonment of sample-led chaos and the demystification of the music's origins will most likely raise the eyebrows of many fans, it's foolish to feel that something's been lost. The stuttering electric guitars and drums on instrumental outsider trip 'All Dogs Go To Heaven' may sound like a late night Amon Düul outtake, but it keeps alive the roaming 'play first, think later' compositional aesthetic of Hype Williams." Tristan Bath

"If you thought Human Animal took too long to jolt out of the speakers to pulverise your brain, this might not be the Wolf Eyes record for you. There are no song-titles like 'Urine Burn', 'Leper War' or 'Mangled Rusty Dog Rot'. We're never fully or persistently stabbed in the face (or ears). Outright aggression has been superseded by the manipulation of tension and suspense. Don't get me wrong, No Answer: Lower Floors isn't exactly Tubular Bells, yet Wolf Eyes are making it abundantly clear that they are growing older and wiser and, yes, even mellowing. Wolf Eyes were never one-dimensional, but they're adding an increasing number of strings to their duct-taped noise bow, and more moods, techniques, textures and subtleties to their bile-splattered palette." JR Moores

"The joy of Bloodsports is in what its title suggests, an embracing of convoluted, dark, twisted narrative between now and then, both in terms of the relationship of the lyricism and Suede's own journey. They've arrived at a romantic, odd, ambitious pop record that eschews musical theatricality for a punchy, 40-something's take on the complexity of love from the view - and this is why it works - of one who is still, at heart, an incurable and incorrigible teenage romantic." Luke Turner

"Clocking in at over 75 minutes, The Inheritors is an exhausting, complex and disorientating listen, but one that will stay with you. Once upon a time, Holden used to bridge the gap between bedroom and club, but now the most suitable location to take in his music would be in the middle of the woods, a windswept moor or a stone circle. It's the boldest of sonic statements. The title is borrowed from William Golding's 1963 novel about Neanderthal man, but I have my own theory - "The Inheritors" are Holden, Kieran 'Four Tet' Hebden, Nathan Fake, Luke Abbott and their peers. They have inherited Detroit techno's legacy and are fucking with it until it is barely recognisable from the source - the scorched, decayed title track in particular is potent fuel for this theory. The lineage may be getting harder to trace, but it's definitely there." Joe Clay

"[L.Pierre's] album speaks to me of the eternal holiday of the alcoholic. Once you create as much distance from your everyday life as you naturally have from orange tinted Polaroids of childhood caravan trips or stays in seaside hotels and Super 8 film reels of school sports days, then you start to experience your quotidian life like it's the sun bleached memory of a happy event. You feel nostalgia and warmth for boring events that are unfolding right in front of you. You feel wistful about experiences that most people would find barbaric or gauche or unremarkable. You experience the epic, the heart-warming and the hilarious in post office and supermarket queues. You develop permanently rose-tinted glasses." John Doran

"For their next trick, Wire attempt time travel – either that or they're looking to pip Kevin Shields and co to the record for the slowest realisation of an album, with a near 35-year gap between initial violent creation and the finished product on this, the band's 12th release. Taken from unfinished sketches that were kicked about on the circuit in 1979-80, Wire aficionados will recognise many of these from the 1981 live album Document & Eyewitness. But more than a remake, it's an exercise in artistic frugality as a means of renewal. As Wire explained to The Quietus, the type of 'creative recycling' employed here has long been a method they've used to make something new. As bassist Graham Lewis puts it, 'It started off as a project that was a good idea, and then suddenly we realised we had a new album. It feels so natural to us, but it's not a common thing.'" Tim Burrows

"it's a delight to find an album that, while obviously in love with its influences, is confident enough to poke fun at them as well. For such an album be Kill The Wolf, my lords. And I would beseech thee to listen most carefully. For it be far from a hey-nonny-no. Rather, it is a resounding hey-nonny-yes." Mat Colegate

"It should be chaos but you can't help but get caught up. You'd be a fool to miss out on the other footwork artists Planet Mu's been promoting, but for sheer, lingering, soulful insanity Boo can't be beat." Lee Arizuno

"I'd take Savages, with their furious, high-velocity update of Joy Division, Simple Minds, British Sea Power, The Smashing Pumpkins, Einsturzende Neubauten, Bauhaus, The Birthday Party, Suede and so on over a thousand pallid boys who've managed, somehow, to divine an 'original' sound at the end of post-modernism. Why? Because Silence Yourself is the manifestation of a formidable spirit, a sense that everything they do is done with great purity of intent, and a brilliant sex, life and death album of a kind rarely seen these days." Luke Turner

"Oh wuuuutt, NYC rapper Le1f has been making cameos in all the recent editions of Hoody Who. You might well remember him from his sassy videos 'Wut' and 'Soda', and he just keeps on coming back with tighter material. Looking up more about Le1f, I kept coming across the term 'banjee', which is an 80s moniker for a Latino or black gay dude who dresses thuggish. He notes that banjee is 'my gay swag, my code word. It makes me feel tall, like a prince'." Jodi Burian

"This extraordinary album was written on an acoustic guitar but has obviously moved on significantly between conception and execution. While the album opens with the chiming of a 12 string, it slowly morphs into elektronische musik before sliding blissfully under layers of super heated sludge guitar and noise. By the time the ecstatic synths are met by necrotic black metal vocals, nothing about this album will surprise you, which is good thing, given that it shifts through sparse BM moves that remind one of Norwegian second wavers Thorns and through the arboreal drones of early Growing, before ending on a celestial cover of Nico's 'My Only Child' with speaker destroying drone metal. Stara Rzeka (Polish for 'Old River') is a side project of Kuba Ziolek of Ed Wood and Innercity Ensemble, and this album has me hitting repeat more than any other released this year so far." John Doran

"But casting aside all the background noise for a minute there is only one (very important) thought on my mind: is it any good? Immediate reaction? Yes. It'll definitely recapture the interest of anyone who felt that The Campfire Headphase was a bit lightweight. It's pitched somewhere between the mellow pastoralism and childlike nostalgia of Music Has The Right To Children and the denser, more complex song structures of Geogaddi. They've not gone dubstep and it certainly isn't EDM. It's resolutely BOC, but their trademark sound has evolved. They're giving all the analogue synth jockeys like Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds a run for their money with some epic, layered work-outs dripping in their trademark cloying melodies, but also heavy in drones and some of their best drum programming yet." Joe Clay

"Hopkins nearly chucked in making his own music after becoming disillusioned when his initial solo albums on Just Music were pretty much ignored. Thank Eno he didn't. Hopkins is one of the gifted few who can imbue his machines with tangible warmth and genuine emotion, whether they are tempting you onto the dancefloor or offering you a moment of sedentary reflection. Up to this point, Hopkins is best known for the work he does with others, as an arranger for Coldplay, an in-demand producer and a talented collaborator, but Immunity is the record that defines him. You'll be blessed if you hear a better album of electronic music this year." Joe Clay

"A mature record, in the best possible sense, Machineries Of Joy reins in the whimsicality and tendency towards wackiness, while still retaining a smart sense of humour alongside the philosophical pondering and strident rock shapes. There are less of the in-jokes for students of existential literature and applied geology, and more of the genuine emotional engagement that should play as well in the Tesco's of Basildon as the smarter salons of Brighton and Cumbria. Not that BSP have foregone their customary originality and wit; far from it. But Machineries Of Joy has a depth and directness that could easily see it becoming their defining album. Oh, BSP, I still love you! Hitch up the caravan and air out the sheets; a second honeymoon could well be on the cards." Ben Graham

"Perhaps it's the impact of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' work on film scores such as The Proposition and The Road, but the command of space and dynamic in the music heightens the lyrical impact. This might be quieter than Grinderman's randy garage hectoring, but these songs still hum with latent power. 'Jubilee Street' (one of the Bad Seeds' finest tracks of recent years) and 'Higgs Boson Blues' especially transfer well to the live setting, building with as much luxurious pomp as anything from the Bad Seeds canon." Luke Turner

"Weirdly, almost from the get go (well, from the get go of the second track at least) the weird thing about this weirdly brilliant album is not how weird it is but how weird it is that you don't notice much of the weirdness, just an intricately woven tapestry of tunefulness and sunny riffs. The fact that African finger pianos are back to back with electric guitars and vintage synths with programmed beats and squalling Fisher Price saxophone with kora doesn't seem weird at all." John Doran

"Bobby Krlic's first album as The Haxan Cloak scared the wits out of us back in 2011 when it dragged itself, croaking uneasily, from its mouldering grave. Excavation turns up the knob marked 'fear and unease', abandoning the acoustic instrumentation of his debut and plunging into a chasm of sub-bass rumble and growl and terse sewer pipe ambience. In both sound and physical effect, it feels like being dragged kicking and screaming downward through a manhole by slimy, rotting hands - but in a manner that's creepily pleasurable rather than genuinely life threatening." Rory Gibb

"Human communication defines Matmos' new album, provides its conceptual basis and ultimately proves to be its most enduring aspect. Over the few months I've been listening to The Marriage of True Minds I've come to adore it - I'm not sure if there's anything else released yet this year that even comes close to its captivating brew of psychedelic noise-pop and musique concrete - and a live show in London last week featuring mock psychic projection, Drew Daniel in death metal studs 'n' leather, an audience making birdcalls and M.C. Schmidt massaging a pair of huge balloons, served as further confirmation of its crackpot brilliance." Rory Gibb

"(Ensemble Pearl) is Stephen O'Malley and Michio Kurihara on guitars, Atsuo from Boris on drums and Bill Herzog from Jesse Sykes' band The Sweet Hereafter on bass. All of them bar Kurihara played together on the successful Sunn O))) and Boris collaborative album Altar in 2006, but this isn't a sequel and, more to the point, doesn't really sound anything like it. Instead the link is a social one: experimental drone rock played this well depends on an intimacy and shared vision between people who can 'read' each other with a frightening degree of insight." John Doran

"Fortunately, it's great. I mean: it's not just good, it's great. It's not Diamond Dogs or Young Americans or Low – get real, this isn't the 70s and you and I are not twelve – but it's great in that it's not Heathen or Reality but better. No wild pioneering sonic experiments here: it's primarily a "rock" album with plentiful twists, with the closest sibling being Scary Monsters. The gorgeous melancholy of 'Where Are We Now?' is unrepresentative." Chris Roberts

"The estuarine landscape of Field Of Reeds is best seen in two ways: in grand panorama from an aircraft banking over London, when sun glints off the water of the Thames widening toward the North Sea. Or, on the other hand, oozy intimacy along the rough shoreline, traditionally a site for dumping the waste of London. Here, alongside creeks where air bubbles rattle from the mud with the ebbing tide, a rutted horizon offers up gifts of ancient marmalade pots, broken clay pipes, fused and rusted metal. It's a landscape that refuses, like memory or dreams, to be defined or contained, that forever shifts and opens itself up to new narratives and fresh explorations. These are the images foremost in my mind whenever I listen to Field Of Reeds, a rich, complex album that, similarly, rewards both the grand overview and close attention, and offers up fresh details, insights and emotions with each listen. It succeeds in exploring a British topography in a way that's both timeless and visionary, delving into the natural, magical, and squidgy unreliability of human memory as they eddy and swirl like the water that surrounds us, and of which we are largely made." Luke Turner

I hate to be a mainstream square all over your cavalcade of obscurities, but for me, that list is seriously missing Daft Punk, Steve Mason, Vampire Weekend (best album of their career), Hookworms, Laura Marling & Mikal Cronin.

No Vampire Weekend. I mean yeah, they can be dilutive, crass and annoying, but Modern Vampires of the City is a masterfully crafted pop release, pretty and full of depth. Christopher Owens Lysandre was one of my favourites, but it wasn't very progressive or interesting in a wider context I suppose...

But one thing is for certain, Youth Lagoon deserves a place on this list. 'Mute' is one of the most polarizing tracks I have heard in years, I stopped in the middle of a city street and took a deep fucking breath just to take it in when it came through my headphones for the first time, truly captivating.

I liked the new Dirty Beaches album too, very disturbing yet gratifying in parts, first album was better though.

All that said however, very good list. A lot I am unaware of that I will listen to. Have been avoiding Savages thus far to be honest, I don't like the look or the first few secinds of the one of the songs I heard... but I'm not being fair, I'll look into them more.

Brilliant stuff tQ. A bunch I agree with, a few I can't stand and about fifty I've never heard! Should keep me entertained on my lunch hour for the next fortnight... (On a personal note: I would've found space for Hookworms/Gold Panda/Mogwai/Gnod but I guess that shows how much good stuff is about this year... Oh and maybe the Fall ;)

Great list. I am surprised with some of your choices, only because of how some of these albums never showed up at all in the "Editor's Picks" throughout the year. Very happy to see Grouper and Jon Hopkins. And that Haxan Cloak album is such a creepy great listen.

Good work. I think it's brilliant to do a mid year list, by November/December everybody's mindset is geared towards 'best of year' lists which can lead to dull canonical consensus, the enemy of good music, good writing and, well, fun. Reading this now just gives me a great list of stuff I need to go and check out. If I were to my own "what, no xxxxxx?" I'd say Colin Stetson's New History Warfare Vol. 3, a phenomenally affecting record (even if it has got Bon Iver on it) but then, surely it'd be no fun reading something that you agreed with 100%.
Don't suppose there's going to be Spotify playlist for this is there?

We're working on the assumption that the majority of our readers didn't buy an album that was only on a limited run from a small Danish label. As we're a UK site we tend to go with UK releases. (This did actually come out in 2012 over here but again, so few people actually know about it, we thought it more important to get word out about it.)

I'd put Pantha Du Prince and the Bell Laboratory in there also. Despite the lukewarm reviews it received it's never been far from my turntable. That Melt Yourself Down record is really great, can't wait to see them live. Great list - plenty of research fodder there as usual - cheers!

From this list, I love L. Pierre, These New Puritans, and a few others. The quickest way into the garbage: Kanye West. Bowie, in my ears, is overrated. but really, no one needs consensus. I miss Wardruna.

So these lists are meant to be subjective and cause debate but I'm astonished that Steve Mason isn't here. Flabbergasted and gobsmacked.

I don't agree with the top 2 at all and strongly think there's an agenda there rather than those are undisputably the favourite top 2 albums. The Bowie album is solid but unspectacular and TNP I simply didnt warm to but then I can see why some critics love it.

Anyway, lots for me to check out there so can't moan too much at the list.

I can't see how anyone could argue with the number 1. Hidden was a great album but Fields of Reeds is on another level and a truly astonishing piece of work (comparable with Talk Talk's later albums). I've already listened to it far more than most albums this year and it's only been out a few weeks. It's also nice to see mbv make an appearance. Various comments by your writers suggested it's not that highly regarded at the Quietus. The fact is, it's (perhaps surprisingly) a fantastic record and to not include it would've been more than a little silly.

Jesus Christ man! Open up the windows and let some air into the room! Are all Steve Mason fans pot addled conspiracy theorists? I don't know any so you'll have to tell me.

Yes, I really love the Bowie album and no, I really don't care for the Steve Mason album that much. You'll be pleased to know that Steve Mason features on one of my favourite tracks of the year 'I Go Out'... perhaps if there were loads of good songs on his album like that one I would have voted for it.

Instead of bitching about the lack of [insert shitty band here] I'm just going to point out that the vast majority of these albums are either uneventful or downright terrible. Seriously. Boards of Canada, Savages, Kanye West, The Haxan Cloak, Matmos, My Bloody Valentine, These New Puritans, Shining, Jon Hopkins, Zomby, the fucking Knife... it's like you guys wanted to make a list of the most overrated crap.

Think you're reading the wrong site - all those great artists you mention regularly appear in these pages, so shouldn't come as a surprise. You want Pishfork or Drowned In Shite, not TQ. (Shit i think i just unintentionally flattered Kanye, ah well, such are the risks with generalisations).

Ha fair enough but the Steve Mason album is career high as far as I'm concerned and tracks like Fight Them Back and Never Be Alone tower over anything on The Next Day and I say that as a huge Bowie fan.

Anyway I had never heard I Go Out so cheers for that.
My window is now open (although it's bloody cold in Edinburgh today)

Well that is quite a funny comment. Going to DIS or P4F is exactly what I would do if I wanted more of that crap, because despite you trying to make it sound like these "great" artists are somewhat unique to The Quietus, they are in fact heavily covered/backed/fellated by the other magazines you mention. Go there and see for yourself. The music press needs to stop being just a lame echo chamber.

I don't want to sound too negative so I would say that there are a few good albums on that list as well as a handful of others that look potentially interesting but as a whole the amount of over-hyped hipster bullshit is offputting.

Pretty balanced list in my opinion, all kinds of genres and talents young and old. I'm usually quite averse to "hipster bullshit", but I really can't see much of it here. Like the other guy says, I'm curious as to your definition... Everything that isn't you or your mate's bands?

Actually, all the artists GorJio listed were given BNM by Pitchfork, except for Zomby, Matmos, and Shining, and even those were given good reviews. You obviously don't know what you are talking about. Geez, the people who hate Pitchfork are just as stupid as people who worship Pitchfork.

"In seriousness though, what would you have included to replace said bullshit?"

I wouldn't have included anything because I'm not a music journalist making lists of albums-of-the-year, so I don't have to worry about that at all.

As for 'hipster bullshit', there's not a single definition but it includes background electronic muzak for people to check their twitter feeds to, unmenacing pseudo-punk acts and 80s-obsessed synthpop bands.

A few years ago there was a kid in Wisconsin who went into his school's canteen armed with a semi-automatic weapon, said something along the lines of 'Hail Satan, long live Marilyn Manson" and then opened fire. Despite being a close quarters he didn't hit a single target and when he turned the gun on himself he only succeeded in blowing his own ear off. He was taken away by the police crying his eyes out.

The thing with trolling music websites is that it's really such an easy thing to do, it really amazes me that there are still people left who mess it up so appallingly.

Firstly: yes, I'm a hipster. I can't speak for the other members of staff but let's put it this way, three of us have moustaches, one of us plays in a cosmic synth rock band and another wears braces and collects antique shoe horns.

If you look closely at the list you'll see that we've picked a Polish neo folk, noise, black metal concept album about ancient trees that comes in a metal tin adorned with Greco Roman designs and what "over-hyped hipster bullshit" do you pick us up on? My Bloody Valentine... a band so much part of the established rock canon that even UNCUT consider them to be essential. Elsewhere there is an album by an acoustic one man neo black metal band from San Francisco who plays the hammered dulcimer and names all of his songs after the Latin names for plants... but what do you pick on for being "over-hyped hipster bullshit"? Kanye West, the most consensus-praised hip hop artist of all time.

Seriously, you're stood right in front of us holding a gun. Why do you keep on shooting yourself in the foot?

Hipsters are nowhere near as unique or eccentric as they like to think they are. They have their uniform and they worship their idols just like every other group.

Hell, if everything from came from the same place than that Stara Rzeka album I wouldn't be here "trolling" as you say (which I'm not), I would be taking notes and checking these records out. Not because obscure/weird is automatically better but because at least it would feel like a list made by individuals with their own unique, particular taste instead of just a copy-paste of everything we're supposed to listen in order to be cool. I might still hate everything on the list but it would make for a more interesting journey.

Nice, that's my foreseeable evenings spent trawling through this list to identify the stuff that turns me on Vs the plain batshit crazy (though thank you already for the Fat White's Cream Of The Young! Easily the winner of best single/most disturbing video of the year) Given the predilections of some of your reviewers, I'm assuming that the new albums from Hedvig Mallestad Trio (instro jazz metal, but nowhere near as killingly awful as that sounds) and Crumbling Ghost (doom rock interpretations of folk standards, ditto) haven't come into your orbit yet, as they are both awesome. Talking of which, no Awesome Science from Humanfly? I think it was your review that prompted me to get it, and it truly is an astonishingly good album. Finally, Public Service Broadcasting - they may already be on their way to the backlash, but it's great, joyful set, with a brace of killer singles.

Ok, I've had my fun. Time to call bullshit on you. Here's the list of the stuff you won't find on other sites' EOYLs (I've even taken off bands that we were writing about years before everyone else like Iceage, The Haxan Cloak and Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats to give you a headstart.) Now either match it with a similar number or more of your own choices that no one else is talking about or fuck off and irritate someone else:

Vision Fortune just missed out. Starts amazingly and then tapers off. They've got a great album in them but this isn't it, I don't think. Pinkunoizu's Second Amendment is a mini album. Their album proper, Drop, will no doubt be in our end of year chart.

There are a few great albums here but I follow music closely and I never heard of many of these and there seems to be a reason for that. I sampled a couple dozen of these bands on Spotify thinking I was missing something and many were truly awful. 2 thumbs up for Suede and Johnny Marr though.

Ok so who's trolling now? Do you seriously think that you guys are the only ones talking about Matmos, Barn Owl, Locrian, Ensemble Pearl, Wire, Prurient, John Foxx, The Ex, Black Pus etc.? You might have well have included Bowie and BoC on that list, that would have made as much sense. Sure, they might not be on a lof of End of Year Lists RIGHT NOW, but that *might* have a bit to do with the fact that we're still only in July, you know? Actually if we're going to be pedant, some of these albums actually appear on Tiny Mixtape's list, some are on FACT's, some others are on Pitchfork's Overlooked Albums. Lescop's album made it to the biggest French magazine last year when it came out. And so on. I'd say there are about 15-20 albums on that list that are somewhat unique. But that's not even the point, I'm not asking you to come up with a list that is 100% unique or some bullshit like that.

As for your little "challenge", do you realize I could easily pick 300 obscure albums at random and pretend they're the best thing you'll hear this year? I just don't see the point in doing that or in posting the records I like like they're gonna blow anyone's mind. I think at the core there is a misconception about my posts. This is not a competition about who's more obscure or who has the best taste. It's about asking the press as a whole to dig a bit deeper than whatever trends are hot right now.

David Bowie up there is pleasing, as is Foals. However my favourite album this year is Everything Everything's Arc. But who cares? It's your bloody opinion. The worst thing about album lists is the armchair critics who can't get it round their head that your list isn't the same as theirs.

Your list isn't that bad... it's just not to my tastes - for my money you've picked a lot of moderately obscure but essentially fair to middling music. I'm certainly not going to be a colossal twat like you and start pulling it to pieces despite all the evidence - it's OK. I'd describe most of your list as smart indie kid good but not outstanding with a few hipster howlers like KXP, Blondes and Xiu Xiu. I've heard of about 80% of those albums and I'll listen to the others. Of course if you had have just suggested the albums in a list in the first place without being a colossal indier than thou cunt with a hangover about it I would have listened to them sooner and we both would have saved a lot of time. However, if you think that your list is somehow really off the beaten track in a way that ours isn't... I'd have to disagree.

And repping for Maps and Diagrams, Gold Panda or The Drones over Matmos is - IN MY OPINION - so wrong headed it's almost breath taking but that's the point I've been trying to make all along. It simply reflects our taste in the office. And if you don't like our taste yet still read the site, then more fool you.

I think you nailed it here, and also on that Facebook post - It does seem to be the indie community who get the most sand in their knickers about perceived omissions/slights etc (I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MISSED OUT LEMUEL AND THE DILETTANTES, HAHA WORST LIST EVER YOU ARE AN IDIOT LOL). This really doesn't seem to happen much in the dance scene, for example, where people often are genuinely excited to be turned onto new stuff and you can get a dialogue going, repping things back and forth. I see a list like this as an opportunity to have a gander at some things i might have missed. I don't particularly enjoy the likes of Suede, Savages etc, but if that butters your bap, on yersel'! Keep up the good work, in other words.

Regarding John's facebook comment, I can guarantee you that metal fans are absolutely not immune to this. Hell they might just be the worst. Metal forums are just awful with the constant genre nitpicking, the trve fans flaming those who dare enjoy newer (read: hipster) forms of metal, etc.

As always, the only people who actually get engaged in conversation are trolls or disagreers, but anyone who attempts an agreeable point with a little twist to it gets utterly ignored. Not that most commenters require to be replied to, but clearly, you have to be a cunt to have a decent conversation with the perpetrators of this site.

I've been a metal journalist for a decade and you're absolutely right but I'm talking about us being a general, non-specific music magazine like Q or whatever. In this context it's usually only indie kids who have the brass balls to state that their choices are superior and can never get their head round the idea of music in other genres being better than Favours For Sailors or Los Campensinos! or some shite like that. I'm sick of having these bullshit conversations with indie kids who with absolutely no self awareness will laugh their heads off at the idea of listening to Toumani Diabate, Electric Wizard, The Thing, RP Boo, Cyclobe, Perc etc but will then try and tell me how good The National are. I'm well aware of how insular and prone to infighting metalheads are but they tend to do it among themselves in my experience. Most of the people who like metal and come to this site are demonstrably more open minded than the indie people who read the site, if we're going be comments and facebook posts. Also they're far more positive. There's nothing more deadening to the soul than that heard it all before/Oh, this is just x, y and z doing a plus b indie torpor.

I've got to say I fucking loved that Humanfly album when I first heard it but I never went back to it. It can often be the way when you're having to deal with 15 new albums per day. We did cover them as a feature and a review I think.

Great list, really. When I find a list that has out 75 albums and about 50 that I haven't heard, it could only mean it's great.
Regarding the number 1 I couldn't agree more and not only because it's one of my favorite's LP of the year but mostly for the sheer amount of courage TNP put into this record. Somebody commented earlier comparing "Field Of Reeds" with late Talk Talk material, that's exactly what I thought while listening to it for the first time. However dig deeper and "Field Of Reeds" is coming to you as a singular and unique piece of modernist work, half-way between the experimental free-jazz and improv surely the band has been influenced to the past few years and the indie.rock they come to be known for.
Besides the NME gave it a lukewarm review, which could only mean good things to me.

I'm really happy about the amount of love Frisk Frugt is getting. He was actually number one in my own poll. I think everyone should listen to his albums. Not just the Burkina Faso one in this chart but his more recent Music For Six Electric Guitars.

Thanks for this list, gives me a lot of music to check out. Just one question, I haven't opened it yet but did you folks avoid describing Kanye West's Yeezus record as industrial or industrial sounding? Because I'm pretty much abandoning every web publication that proclaims such a stupid catch phrase.

"the NME gave it a lukewarm review, which could only mean good things to me" - nothing against the TNP album, which I think is terrific, but if people who say this kind of thing actually made a consistent point of buying albums which get lukewarm NME reviews I suspect they would change their tune pretty quickly

It's definitely worth returning to - one of those nice albums that didn't blow me away immediately, but offered enough to make me keep going back to it with increased ardour. I've no idea how you deal with the volume of music you must be exposed to without just shouting "enough!" at some point.

Oh, another album that TQ brought to my attention that I would have included is Columns by Baron, a really interesting take on prog in 2013, rewards repeated listens as per Humanfly.

Much of the music here, after listening to samples where I can find 'em, is nowt much more than video game soundtrack. The Haxan Cloak only sounds 'creepy' because of pre-existing cultural determinants via film and video game. To a new listener isolated from these influences, it probably sounds about as creepy as bird-call.

as always a brilliantly revealing and tantalising list. david bowie, matmos, nick cave, british sea power, l. pierre and suede would all make my top 20 too, and plenty of new, unheard stuff to indulge in.
i'll have to find the time to go back to that pusha T mixtape too. it's been getting a lot of love but when i listened to it i didn't get on too well.

I genuinely don't understand why people get so cross if albums on the Quietus' End of year List are also on other sites. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. I'm pretty sure the guys have no agenda, its literally albums they heard that they liked. The obscure-ness or mainstream-ness pretty doesn't enter into consideration for most (proper) music fans. The only question to be considered, when it comes down to it, is did I like it? The kind of people that may (or may not) like an album I enjoyed is not something that affects my liking of it.

Rather than sighing at aspects of the comment thread and silently walking away a little sadder like I normally do, I'm going to try and make a tiny contribution to the sum total of internet positivity. The various tQ mid/end-year lists never fail to bring genuinely exciting new stuff to my attention, and I frequently find myself returning to them. Nice one chaps.

In these days of digital Bandcamp/itunes releases, what makes it an Album rather than merely an EP and so eligible for this list?

I feel like there should have been some more Bristol/Manchester/Hoxditch bass but looking back through my collecting, there's only DjRum - Seven lies, Walton - Beyond, FaltyDl - Hardcourage that stand out and are missing from here. Mogwai - Les Revenants is worth a mention, but perhaps because the TV series is so unsettling rather than the soundtrack music particularly.

So can I just recommend Young Echo - Nexus; mainly for just being a bit odd but still listen-able.

Seeing as I just pissed 15 minutes of my life away reading this exchange... I have to interject and say that your 'obscure' list is utterly risible. Blondes, Xiu Xiu, Gold Panda (?!?),Julian Lynch, Maps & Diagrams... all those releases are pretty beige and P4K-friendly, especially in consideration of their earlier discographies. Also, naming that Lusine album as "obscure" must be a willed joke? That album is precisely his self-announced attempt at making a vocal-pop crossover album: it's the absolute nadir of his electronic career. To me, it seems like you place such a high privilege on obscurity because you're feeling an anxiety of influence - you're still in that liminal P4K territory, but will go to great pains to distance yourself from it. Sorry: insert coin, try again.

Fantastic list—I love everything I've heard so far (probably about 30 of the top 75), and I'd place the Haxan Cloak, the Knife, Jon Hopkins, Matmos, and Ensemble Pearl among the top 15-20 of this year. Haven't spent enough time with TNP yet, but loved the first two, and given all the Talk Talk comparisons, I'm sure it's 100% up my alley.

Here are 10 more I'd include in my own top 30 or so—and I don't see any of these mentioned in the comments, except for Stetson—

Loving Frisk Frugt. They remind me of the old Brazilian acts like Lula Cortes/Ze Ramalho but with an energizing dose of Kraut. The bands from the states could learn a few things from these guys as they have fallen into an indie by numbers routine as of late.

Thanks for the great list! A lot of exciting stuff here to check out (i'm definitely going to bite with the Frisk Frugt... excuse the 'pun'). I'm also particularly grateful to tQ for nodding me in the direction of the Baron album... It's a slow burner for sure but worth the effort... Like the new Nick Cave.

So far the new Queens Of The Stone Age and Clutch albums have suprised me and re-kindled a love I thought was on the wain...

Standish/Carlyon - 'Deleted Scenes' is oddly filling a hole left by the realisation that Destroyer might not do 'Kaputt' Part 2...

The Knife have been making my car engine misfire in a good way...

...and Endless Boogie and Uncle Acid have reinforced my love for the concept of pummelling an idea mercilessly into submission in order to bring it back to life.

I'm particularly looking forward to the new White Hills and Lumerians albums, would point everyone in the direction of Brandt Brauer Frick and harbour a (probably folorn) desire for a new Lykke Li album before the year's out.

I admire The Quietus for offering an alternative than other music critique (which is all very similar) and for that reason cannot fathom how a meat and two veg album from David Bowie and indie drivel from the likes of Suede, British Sea Power and Johnny Marr can feature here. Utterly unremarkable albums. That said, and I'll make you laugh now, I think Camera Obscura's new l.p. is really beautiful. A band that still does pop imaginitively and passionately. John Grant, a bit predictably, and Jon Hopkins are my picks this year.

Hi, I can see how if you're an indie fan or whatever Deafheaven must be pretty exciting but really, in terms of metal it's just desperately predictable compared to Wolfbait, absolutely no fun compared to Death Trip, not as exciting as Shining and not as heavy as Cathedral. So, no, we're not really into this really fussy, elk in sunset metal.

That Suede album is terrible and I've been a fan since The Drowners. It's not even bad Suede, it's bad 3rd division Britpop. That song 'Hit Me' couldn't be worse, honestly!! Did you eggheads at Quietus actually listen to it or was the list edited to make it look more controversial?

Ok, so I'm rather late to the party here. Admittedly I don't know many of the bands/albums listed, but I wanted to say that I positively love seeing Dawn Richard's album, Goldenheart, at the 25 spot. I really like Goldenheart, but somehow it's an inclusion I just wasn't expecting to see. Cheers to you. Excited to broaden my horizons and check out a bunch of albums from the list.